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The decision of the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) in The Appeal of Benchmark Furniture Limited (2018) UKUT 0170 (LC) is the latest in what is now quite a long line of cases where the Upper Tribunal has reinstated business rates appeals that had been struck out by the Valuation Tribunal for England (VTE).
This case related to a vacant industrial property on a business park at Hungerford. The property had been damaged and the ratepayer made a proposal to delete it from the rating list. The Valuation Officer did not agree the proposal, which was referred to the VTE as an appeal. The VTE issued a notice of hearing of the appeal, together with its standard directions which required the ratepayer to serve a statement of case on the Valuation Officer and subsequently to file all papers with the VTE. The ratepayer contended that it did not receive the notice of hearing and the directions and, because of this, did not serve a statement of case. As it had not received a statement of case, the VTE struck out the appeal for a failure to comply with its directions. The ratepayer applied to reinstate the appeal on the basis that there was doubt as to whether the notice of hearing had been sent to the appeal property, which was unoccupied, or to its head office, but, in any event, that it had not received the notice and the directions. The VTE dismissed the application to reinstate the appeal, finding that the notice had been sent to “the correct address” and was deemed to have been received.
The ratepayer appealed to the Upper Tribunal against the refusal to reinstate the appeal and presented evidence regarding the receipt of post at its head office. The ratepayer contended that, either, the notice had not been sent to the correct address, or, if it was correctly addressed, it had not been received. the Upper Tribunal found that the VTE had deemed the notice to have been received, relying upon section 7 of the Interpretation Act 1978, but had failed to consider the evidence that the notice of hearing and the directions had not been received. In this respect the Upper Tribunal noted that “it was not open to the VTE to rely on the statutory deemed service of the notice of hearing and directions without also dealing clearly with the appellant’s attempt to prove that service had not in fact occurred”. Because of this, the application to reinstate the appeal had not been properly considered by the VTE, and the VTE’s decision to refuse reinstatement must be set aside. The Upper Tribunal reinstated the appeal and remitted it to the VTE to issue a fresh notice of hearing.
We very much hope that this will be the last in the line of such cases and that the VTE will review and amend its processes regarding the striking out of appeals and, particularly, regarding its consideration of applications to reinstate appeals that have been struck out. The clear message from the Upper Tribunal is that the interests of justice need to be very carefully and fully considered before applying such a harsh sanction as striking out an appeal.
